It's not her style to own a smear while she helps advance it.
Is Barack Obama a Christian? "As far as I know" Hillary replied.
That is her style. So while others in 2008 portrayed Obama as somehow alien and not American enough to be President, while literally disputing his self professed faith - no Hillary didn't go there - not exactly. But did she accept Obama's own word on his own faith, well no - not exactly. As far as Hillary knew Obama was a Christian but, you know, there just might be some other information out there that she didn't know about yet that could prove he was a secret Muslim. Feel free to look into it further if you want to, maybe Google "Obama Secret Muslim" for leads, but as far as Hilary knew just then, Obama was Christian. Other opinions may differ, but Hillary wasn't the one who flat out called him Muslim. Nope, not her style.
Is Bernie Sanders qualified to be President? Hillary couldn't even bring herself to say "As far as I know" this time when she was asked that question directly. Let the voters decide, she opined, “but he's been talking for more than a year about doing things that he obviously hadn't really studied or understood, and that raises a lot of questions".
Questions about what? About whether Sanders is qualified to be President one has to imply because that is what she was asked to comment on. But did Hillary flat out call Bernie unqualified to be President? Nope, not her style.
Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are both running to be the Democratic candidate for President. In so doing Sanders officially declared himself to be a Democrat, and he affirms that he is a Democrat now to anyone when asked. So is Bernie Sanders a Democrat? There's that nagging doubt again. Hillary just doesn't know:
“He’s a relatively new Democrat,” Clinton said. “I’m not even sure he is one. He's running as one. So I don't know quite how to characterize him. I'll leave that to him.”
God forbid she take him at his word, or even accept the legal filings that now certify Sanders as a Democrat. Nope that's not her style, at least not when she thinks she can gain votes by sowing doubt. Of course if she thinks there might be votes to gain, she takes a different tack, like she did here:
Clinton to campaign for Crist
09/22/14 07:56 PM EDT
“Hillary Clinton will headline a fundraising dinner for Florida Democratic gubernatorial Charlie Crist next month, putting her in a key presidential state in the midterms battle, according to an invitation.
Crist, a Republican turned Democrat running for his old job, is in one of the toughest gubernatorial races in the country.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/hillary-clinton-charlie-crist-campaign-florida-111229
Maybe Hillary was somehow unclear about Crist's full throttle Republican past when she fully embraced him as a Democrat. But then what about Arlan Specter, who Hillary Clinton served with in the United States Senate for eight years; she in the Democratic Caucus (alongside Bernie Sanders for part of that time), he in the Republican Caucus. Then one day in 2009 Specter declared himself a Democrat instead, and the entire Democratic Party – Hillary Clinton included, rushed to embrace him as a Democrat with arms fully extended. One thing you did not hear Hillary Clinton say when Specter sought reelection to the Senate as a Democrat in 2011 was anything remotely akin to: “He’s a relatively new Democrat. I’m not even sure he is one. He's running as one. So I don't know quite how to characterize him. I'll leave that to him.” No, that would not have served her interests, so that would not have been her style.
On the very night when Clinton suffered an electoral setback in Wisconsin, CNN broke with an anonymously sourced CNN report claiming her campaign was planning to "disqualify him, defeat him”. Now that is more Hilary's style, no one heard her say that. No one heard Hillary repudiate that report either. True, Hillary Clinton did not technically call Bernie Sanders unqualified to be President, but she persistently refused to shoot down that meme after her own campaign injected the belief that Sanders will soon be disqualified into the political discussion. She didn't technically say it but that's what she wants people to believe.
Well, it's not Bernie's style to stand down before innuendos, or third party character assassins who ply their trade in acidic talking points from a Super PAC's short arms length away - to allow for plausible deniability. There is no real debate about who is literally qualified to be President, the United States Constitution settled that matter centuries ago, both Hillary and Bernie are “qualified”. The debate is over who Americans should entrust with that high position, and why. That is what this rhetorical argument is about except that Hillary, as usual, is being circumspect while Bernie, as usual, is straight forward.
It was Hillary Clinton who started on this path of playing with political fire. Even after that anonymously sourced CNN report became public she could easily have snuffed out almost all the resulting flames by simply answering that fellow Democrat Bernie Sanders, who millions of Democrats have supported over her, was indeed qualified to be President. That is not a significant point for Hillary to concede while reserving the right to argue that she is the more qualified of the two. But no, that's not her style. She somehow couldn't bring herself to say that, and so she invited this fire storm upon us.
Bernie now is cutting to the heart of the matter, he's not artfully hiding behind technicalities. The latter is the Clinton brand, not his. If Hillary wants to go beyond the constitutional requirements and debate what it takes for someone to qualify as a good President for the United States, the response Sanders gave her was 100% fair game.
= new reply since forum marked as read
It's related to what you said in the excellent original post, her surrogates do it. Hillary keeps a plausible deniability. She has a lot of high profile hatchet wielders and attack dogs. That's part of the institutional advantage she has by being the establishment. She has the corporate media on her side.
Media was reporting it like this:
Link
And there were quotes from Clinton campaign sources saying they were getting ready to go that direction. And the media was running with that. That was the clear message they were sending, and Hillary stoked that fire when she was on Morning Joe.
Bernie was responding to their message. And was right that was their message. The Clinton campaign did the same thing to Obama in 2008. They tried to paint him as a foreigner and they said he was not qualified.
Bernie had to respond in a very strong way and I really think he was angry after Hillary's allies tried to pin Sandy Hook on him. That was a very low blow.
why not?
The Clinton campaign began their strategy of disqualify and defeat, which is exactly what Jeff Zeleny repoted, but once Sanders fought back they decided to hide and say 'we never said that.'
And CNN pretends appears to have totally forgotten that report.
Published on Apr 6, 2016
AUDIO: "The Clinton Campaign has been watching these Wisconsin results come in and the delegate race of course is tight there, but the reality is they're running out of patience…. so they're going to begin deploying a new strategy… it's going to be called 'DISQUALIFY HIM - DEFEAT HIM' … and then they can unify the party later.
For the last several months, the Clinton Campaign has been first ignoring Bernie Sanders, then dismissing him -- now they are going to go head-long into him, I'm told, beginning here in the New York Primary in two weeks on his gun record, on other things. So Party-unity aside for now, one aide told me that will come later. They're going to start trying and defeating Bernie Sanders so that scenario you saw play out there on John's wall, does not come true. The Clinton Campaign is running out of patience. They want to stop Bernie Sanders, and move on to the Fall Campaign."
